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About the Project

Dixie Highway is one of Louisville Metro’s busiest, widest and most dangerous transportation corridors. Its fatality rate is more than three times the rate of similar highways.

Improving safety, mobility and economic development are vital to the thousands of residents and businesses that depend on Dixie Highway. More than 60,000 drivers and more than 4,000 transit riders travel this busy corridor daily.

The New Dixie Highway

The New Dixie Highway represents a $35 million investment to improve safety, mobility and livability along the corridor. These initial improvements will help spur more investment in future Dixie Highway enhancements in the coming years.

The New Dixie Highway is the first project under Mayor Greg Fischer’s MOVE Louisville initiative, which seeks to modernize and improve transportation across the metro area

This $35 million investment has coincided with a $14.5 million pavement replacement and resurfacing that was already underway along a five-mile segement from Stonegate Manor Drive to Greenwood Road. Overall, the entire project area runs from the Gene Snyder Freeway to downtown Louisville, spanning more than 14 miles and is the largest infrastructure investment in the area since the Ohio River Bridges Project.

Improving safety along Dixie Highway is the No. 1 priority of The New Dixie Highway project. Between the years 2010-14, the New Dixie project area was the scene for 34 traffic-related fatalities. This rate of fatal crashes is more than three times the rate of similar roadways in Kentucky.

Improved connections in the most dangerous areas, especially for pedestrians and bus riders

Increased use of raised medians to improve safety for left turns

Some driveway consolidations

Signage and striping upgrades for lanes and crosswalks

Other safety enhancements

Smarter Traffic Flow

Cell phones are not the only things getting smarter these days. Traffic control technology also is improving to allow vehicles to move through busy corridors more quickly and efficiently.

A key element of The New Dixie Highway will be the use of Intelligent Transportation System/Advanced Traffic Management System technology. The new technology will monitor vehicle traffic and adjust traffic signal timing to improve traffic flow and relieve congestion, which may also reduce crashes.

The system will be connected to Louisville’s traffic-management system using fiber-optic lines that will be able to support future communications technology for intersecting streets, cameras, dynamic message signs and other future ITS systems and equipment.

Bus Rapid Transit Service

TARC’s Route 18, which serves the Dixie Highway corridor, is the area’s best-performing bus route, carrying an average of more than 4,000 riders daily. However, high demand for service combined with traffic congestion along the corridor often causes delays to scheduled stops.

The launch of Louisville’s first bus rapid transit line will improve, speed, service and reliability on the Route 18 line and transform the look and feel of the Dixie Highway Corridor. This system, which eventually could be expanded to other parts of TARC’s service area, will include:

About 30 distinctive bus-rapid transit stops along the length of the Dixie Highway corridor

TARC-designated queue-jump lanes and bus turnouts that make it safer and easier for buses to re-enter traffic after stops

A Traffic Signal Priority system connected with the Intelligent Transportation System

Project Schedule

As of March 2019:

Work already completed: Construction workers ground down existing medians in order to create space to shift traffic lanes. Workers needed the lane closest to the curb for utility location and improvements. To avoid reducing driving lanes, the team removed medians to shift traffic and maintain traffic capacity. This allowed crews to begin utility work with less impact for drivers.

Crews completed water main location and storm drainage improvements between Greenwood and Blanton on the northbound side of Dixie Highway and between Heaton and Upper Hunters Trace on the southbound side. Once the underground work was completed, crews installed curbs and added, expanded, and/or connected sidewalks. By summer of 2018, construction crews had completed nearly 6,000 linear feet of curb and gutter, and about 3,000 linear feet of sidewalk.

In the Summer of 2018, Crews switched to the southbound side of the road between Greenwood and Blanton and to the northbound side between Heaton and Upper Hunters Trace. Then, crews will repeat the same kind of work they did on the opposite sides of the road: locating water mains, improving storm drainage, adding new curb and gutter, and adding or completing sidewalks.

2019: Once the outer “sides” of the project are done, medians will be installed in the center of Dixie, from Crums Lane to Greenwood Road. Once medians and signs are installed, drivers can begin utilizing U-turns to reach destinations on the opposite side of Dixie. Also, 37 new RAPID bus stops will be installed. New pavement surfacing and striping will be added last.

While the main components of the project will be in place by the end of 2019, some final pieces - such as the final surface and landscaping - will not be able to be completed in winter. Those pieces will be complete in early 2020.